Vidal Victorious at Pro-Am 14.1 Tournament

Sep

North Jersey Straight Pool Pro-Am Quarterly / Parsippany, NJ

by Scott Abramowitz

Marc Vidal ran 93 balls from a negative 1 score to easily win the third quarter 2009 North Jersey 14.1 Straight Pool Pro-Am Quarterly tournament, held at Comet Billiards in Parsippany, NJ, during the weekend of September 26-27. If not for a brief lapse in concentration, Vidal would have easily hit the century mark and quite possibly a run-out.

Vidal defeated Bill Horne by a score of 121-11 in the finals. At the outset of the match, both players were evenly handicapped at a skill level 3, with each needing 110 points for a victory. The handicap system of this tournament allows each player of this skill level to run 75 balls without obtaining penalty points. Because Vidal had exceeded his handicap ball run limit, he was assessed with an additional 11 points that was added to his match points (10% of starting match points) and therefore needed 121 points for a win. Also, with that run of 93 balls, Vidal was promoted to a skill level 2, which will take effect in the next tournament he plays in.

Runner-up Horne played well throughout the tournament, despite his crushing defeat from Vidal. Horne had a 46-ball run in his semifinal victory against Joey Kong and other notable ball runs in earlier matches of 52 and 38.

Kong came in third place and held the tournament-high run of 71 balls since his first-round victory over Pat Fleming, only to lose the high-run bonus money of $150 to Vidal’s 93-ball run in the last match of the tournament.

BCA Hall of Famer Pat Fleming finished with a respectable fourth place, despite having displayed more consistency than any of the other player, having double and triple runs over 20 balls in every match he played, except his first match against Kong, for a total of thirteen runs in six matches